“I can’t resist concluding this column with some kernels of consumption advice accumulated by the prominent scholars Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson. Surveying the vast literature of happiness research, they suggest: Buy experiences instead of things; buy many small pleasures instead of a few big ones; pay now for things you can look forward to and enjoy later.” (ThinkProgess)

The one inarguable gain as that season came to an end was that I was still alive, something you may take for granted but I never have. I had made it through another year. It’s good to have a few constants in my life. After my mum and sisters, Spurs is the longest relationship I have ever had, and it’s an infinite source of enrichment: Spurs show me how to win and lose, how to say hello and goodbye. From 90 minutes to a lifetime. (The Guardian)

Perhaps you want to invent the cure for malaria, or bake a perfect baguette, or create the next Facebook. Whatever – don’t apologize for your obsession. Just be grateful you are obsessed with something, that you’ve found a goal worth getting gritty over. Because if your goals ever feel tedious, if you find them as unnecessary as that last bite of chocolate cake, then you’re never going to put in the necessary work. Grit requires passion. Grit requires love. And love is just another name for what never gets old. Love is the opposite of underwear. (Wired)

“The United States has won more than 1,000 Olympic gold medals. It has produced 26 British Open champions, 14 No. 1 tennis players and two winners of the Tour de France. It’s the birthplace of swimmer Michael Phelps, volleyball legend Karch Kiraly and chess master Bobby Fischer. An American nicknamed “the dump truck” nearly became the grand champion of sumo.

But there’s one feat that this wealthy and populous nation hasn’t achieved yet and, if recent events are any indication, won’t achieve any time soon.

No American man has ever become a bona fide international soccer superstar.”

The piece blames the standard of coaching but I would suggest a few other reasons :

– they don’t call the sport by its proper name i.e. FOOTBALL;

– the terrible standard of play in the MLS (which I have seen for myself);

– more US players need to play in Europe, such as Tim Howard at Everton ;

– Americans like winners so it won’t happen until the US team comes close to winning the World Cup.

By coincidence today is the one-year anniversary of Landon Donovan’s dramatic goal in the last World Cup against Algeria which took the US into the second round. Business Insider, with typical American understatement, describes it as the “greatest sports moment of your lifetime.”

It was painful to be reminded that the next World Cup is three years away (big sigh).

“Then, with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile, the server puts a small MP3 player with a speaker on the table. He turns it on and nods.

An announcer’s voice, excited and frantic, explodes. Messi is on the move. “Messi turns and spins!” the announcer cries, and the roar of the crowd at the Bernabéu stadium, in Madrid, fills the table. The server nods, eyes intent. At the signal, you eat the first meringue.

“Messi is alone on goal!” the announcer cries. Another nod, you eat the next scented meringue. “Messi shoots!” A third nod, you eat the last meringue, and, as you do, the entire plastic S-curve, now unbalanced, flips up and over, like a spring, and the white-chocolate soccer ball at the end is released and propelled into the air, high above the white-candy netting.

“MESSI! GOOOOOAL!” The announcer’s voice reaches a hysterical peak and, as it does, the white-chocolate soccer ball drops, strikes, and breaks through the candy netting into the goal beneath it, and, as the ball hits the bottom of a little pit below, a fierce jet of passion-fruit cream and powdered mint leaves is released into your mouth, with a trail of small chocolate pop rocks rising in its wake. Then the passion-fruit cream settles, and you eat it all, with the white-chocolate ball, now broken, in bits within it.”

I am trying to come to terms with another four years without the World Cup. One remedy is to start saving so I can go to Brazil in 2014 and another is to reminisce on some highlights from the past four weeks:

– while watching the final I didn’t understand the significance of Andres Iniesta taking off his Spanish shirt after scoring the winning goal to reveal a white T-shirt with the words “Dani Jarque: siempre con nosotros” – but they were in remembrance of a former 26-year old teammate who died last year.

“Another obvious social and political fact resonating off last night’s events is how Spain has modernised socially. On the streets where the Catalan flag and language were once repressed, people used both to celebrate the Spanish victory. In a landscape shaped by inquisition-era Catholicism, gay men leapt around in the fountains wearing only bathing trunks bearing the word Espana.﻿”

I managed to do one non-World Cup* related thing last weekend and catch Maxwell in concert at Madison Square Garden.

I loved his first album, Urban Hang Suite, way back in 1996 but then completely lost track of him. As a result I didn’t even realise it was Maxwell performing at last year’s BET Awards until I did a search to find out who was such a great performer. Another factor in my defense is that Maxwell had an eight-year gap between his third album and BLACKsummers’night which I bought last July and has since gone to the top of the most played list on my iPod.

The concert was amazing as Maxwell bought such emotion to his songs. He was particularly moving when he spoke about growing up in Brooklyn and dreaming about playing at the Garden and when he thanked his fans for letting him live his life and then returning to him after his hiatus – he is living proof that in the end the truly talented will succeed.

I am going to let Maxwell’s music speak for itself in Pretty Wings, my favourite track from the album:

“We weren’t cheated by anyone except ourselves . We lost to a better team. It’s much easier to accept this. To accept that we’re just not capable of performing basic footballing actions — passing the ball accurately, controlling it, NOT LETTING THE OTHER TEAM SCORE FROM A GOAL KICK UP THE MIDDLE — at anything like the same level as the Germans, let alone the Argentinians or the Spanish.”

Before the World Cup started I regretted not being in England due to the lack of enthusiasm in the US for my all-time favourite sporting event. So it has been a real, and wonderful, pleasure to be in New York and see interest leap one hundred-fold from four years ago. One American friend who works for a British firm said she only followed the last World Cup due to the interest of the ex-pats but this time even her mother in suburban America has been following the progress of the US team.

The amount of coverage between now and then has grown exponentially. For example, the photos above are from a World Cup exhibition sponsored by ESPN which includes paintings of each of the 32 competing nations and is in Columbus Circle, an upscale shopping centre smack in the middle of Manhattan, which have been used for posters that are plastered all over New York. Another friend said that four years ago most Americans didn’t even know the World Cup was on, let alone follow the US team.

But if you watched the U.S.-Algeria throwdown, you’re surely a convert. Did you not loudly slap your desk in triumph, hug or kiss a stranger, down a beer (or three) with your boss? Did you flee your desk entirely for the bar, and if you did, do you remember where you work—or your last name? Or are you at the airport without a suitcase, trying to wiggle onto a flight to South Africa?”

– BuzzFeed has the five best videos showing the reaction to Donovan’s goal from around the US. It doesn’t include anything from La Guardia airport in New York. Someone told me that he had got off a flight just before the end of the US-Algeria game and suddenly heard thousands of people screaming when the goal went in;

– At Salon, an American writes about falling in love with the beautiful game when he was posted to Hong Kong in 1990 and saw everyone watching games involving teams who were from thousands of miles away and he wanted to understand why. I think Andrew Leonard understands it pretty well :

“I don’t know of another sport that can boast the same kind of slowly accumulating tension against a remorselessly ticking clock . When there are ten minutes to go to in a World Cup, there are ten minutes to go, (stoppage time excluded, of course.) It’s not like the last three minutes of a close NBA finals game, where time seems to stretch into infinity.”

So good luck to the US against Ghana today as I hope the love affair continues to blossom – and it will also help keep my mind off the monster England vs Germany clash tomorrow.